BOB LYALL (1938-2023)

"Bob Lyall passed away on 11th December 2023 at the age of 85. The relatively small community of collectors of West Indian cut and countermarked coins have lost a true cornerstone in our series.

"Bob was a collector from a young age and in his teens focused on the coinage of Charles I. This eventually developed into a serious collection. In 1958 Bob did his National Service in the Royal Navy and this included a period of time in the West Indies and British Honduras. Something about the region stuck in his mind and in 1969/1970 Bob started collecting the cut and countermarked coins from the Caribbean islands. Over the years many letters were written to collectors, libraries and archives seeking information and as a result a number of articles were written.

"I met Bob through correspondence in 1975 and when I first visited the UK, in 1977, Bob organised a weekend visit to Fred Pridmore's home. What a valuable experience that was for both of us. Bob's most important work was published by Spink & Son in 1998, ‘West Indian Coinage – Some New Discoveries.' This work brought to light a number of previously unpublished Acts, Decrees and Proclamations that greatly added to our knowledge of this fascinating series.

"Bob also was a keen collector of tokens from the West Indies and British Colonies and he formed a very comprehensive collection. In 1988 the Token and Medal Society published his book ‘The Tokens, Checks, Metallic Tickets, Passes and Tallies of the British Caribbean and Bermuda'. He later privately published ‘The Tokens and Checks of Malta' and ‘The Tokens and Checks of Gibraltar'.

"The sale of Bob's collection of cut and countermarked coins through DNW, in September 2018, established a new milestone in the series with the number of rarities offered.

"A great friend and colleague of mine going back nearly 50 years … I will miss him."

Bob Lyall has been a cornerstone with respect to research on the West Indies cut and countermarked series for many years. A major achievement was the publication of a very important booklet, West Indian Coinage — Some New Discoveries , by Spink in 1998. This work brought to light a significant amount of contemporary documentation not previously published in the numismatic domain. Additionally, his work covers much more as evidenced by his book on West Indies tokens, and publications on Gibraltar, identifying this colony as the original location for the series of heart-shaped piercings (the earliest examples of mutilated coinage for British colonial use) in 2008, his book on the tokens of Malta, along with a number of articles published in Spink's Numismatic Circular over the years.

Bob developed a collecting interest at quite an early age, starting off with artefacts and objects of interest given to him by family members. By the age of twelve his interest focused primarily on numismatics. He was already on his way to forming a significant collection of the coinage of Charles I (sold in these rooms in 2015 and 2016) when he had his first exposure to the West Indies (including Bermuda, Bahamas and British Honduras) in 1958, performing his National Service with the Royal Navy.

While some issues are common (common being a relative term in this series), many are great rarities. Accordingly, the collecting fraternity has been small in number, due not only to the lack of material but also to the limited understanding of the social and economic conditions that brought about the existence of these coins. It is gratifying to see that in the past 8-10 years there has been a marked increase in interest by collectors and students, and a genuine recognition of the rarity of the coins in general. It is not the easiest series to understand, complicated as it is by ‘unofficial' specimens, ‘contemporary counterfeits' and, sadly, ‘modern fakes'. With study the first two categories add significant interest to the series and indeed these coins formed an integral part of the day-to-day marketplace transactions for which the various island assemblies took steps to enact this exceptional local coinage. With very few exceptions, study and close examination can usually detect and identify the third category.

Bob, being a faithful student of the series, focused on study and research, writing literally hundreds of letters to museums, historical societies and individuals who might have useful information, and visiting various libraries and museums in the UK and the West Indies.